I love a bargain, or trying to create something out of nothing (something I picked up from my thrifty mother).
I have my chickens and my kitchen garden, both of these provide produce for my love of cooking.
Basically, if you can sew it, make, grow it or cook it you have come to the right place.
Follow me on my sewing/growing/cooking and making adventures together with some of life’s daily trials and tribulations.

About Me

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Well I am trying to keep the momentum going with my sewing and purchased some new patterns that took my fancy.

The Butterick pattern was inspired by Margy another blogger who has made this up several times and I just thought the top looked so comfortable, but stylish too. I just loved the crisp black and white asymmetrical look of the Vogue pattern (very Armani Spring 2013 ), however I have some nice cream and black shoes, and am also thinking that colour combination would work well too. The McCalls shorts will be excellent when riding my bike, however perhaps not as short as the model is wearing. This is a Palmer Pletsch pattern and they also have a long version which I am thinking might be suitable for my trip to the open air opera at the end of the month. The last McCalls top pattern looks lovely and light and airy, so that is a great make for summer casual clothes.

I have traced off (a first for me) Vogue 9004, and cut out the pattern, and later today I'll try and get this cut out - I thought this was a lovely top to take to Paris with me next week. If I get time, I'll try and run up a pair black trousers/pants to go with it.

So I am getting my sewing toe dipped to take up some "me" sewing, but gosh its very hot here at the moment (relatively speaking) - (I told my work colleague in Houston its really hot here, and she said how hot is hot, and then I told her, it would be perfect weather for her, a lot less hot than Houston ha ha), its hard to go indoors and sew when its hot for me (we have to capitalise on any good weather).

Watch this space, you might see my first garment(s) sewn for quite a while.

Sunday, 8 June 2014

We have had a glorious weekend here, the sun was shining and it was truly beautiful.

I spent a great deal of time filling my raised beds with topsoil and compost, weeding, watering etc., but I decided to make a start on a birthday gift for my best friend .

She loves her chickens so I decided to make her an applique/thread painted picture of a cockerel/Rooster.

I used some embroidered black quilting fabric for the body, and one of the embellished parts of the fabric cried out to become the bird's tail. All other fabrics were in my scraps box and this was done without using a hoop.

I now need to find a frame, and a double mount to complete the picture and this will be presented with some hand-made chocolates for her birthday.

I am so pleased with this, I now want to make one for myself.......

Last but not least, all the chicken eggs have now hatched, and we have 7 adorable babies, but they are growing up so fast. I am not sure how many girls we have, fingers crossed on that one.

I do need to do some me sewing this week. I have a business trip to Paris week after next, and I am going to the opera with my friend who will be the recipient of the picture, so I would like to make something new to wear to these events.